15th anniversary of Volunteering at Sungei Buloh February 22, 2017

Took a  walk and settled  down  for 2 sketches at the Main Hide this morning to celebrate my 15 years of helping out at this wetland reserve.

Chatted with Mendis and Raj, and had a meeting with Halilah and Shufeng on coming art and conservation activities for Loyang Sec School. Then hitched a buggy ride to the New  Visitor Centre, stopping  enroute along Kranji Trail to look at salvaging fell tree parts for use as materials for installation art here.

Felt good about having served 15 years already  and thankful for the chance to continue my volunteering for nature here at Sungei Buloh Wetlands.

Jokingly mentioned that Buloh can use my numerous past sketches to chronicle its changes when I reach 20 years of volunteering.

My guided tour for ACE SENIORs at Sungei Buloh on 18 Feb 2017 February 19, 2017

The weather was perfect, cool and breezy and an enthusiastic small gathering of friends from ACES made the event even more interesting.

We sighted  2 cros, 2 snakes, several orb web spiders, lots of  mangrove trees with interesting root systems, some egrets, red shanks, and a few white belly sea eagles.

Their first experience of encountering cros in the wild, watching  closeup at green whip snakes  and tree climbing crabs, were highlights during the 2 hour tour.  A brief intro to the wonderful world of migratory birds that visit us  annually opened their eyes to how our living environment owes much to our feathered  friends.

Hope more members can join us the next time.

Tham Pui San, Nature guide and volunteer at Sungei Buloh Wetlands

Farewell to the Tembusu Tree at Palm Valley February 15, 2017

While we  lament the fall and demise of this grand old  tembusu tree at Palm Valley at SBG on 11.2.2017, at 425pm, and  also for the 3 injured and 1 dead,  we celebrate the good that this tree has provided us all these 270 years, providing oxygen, aesthetics and awe inspiring vision for all who admire its  presence along the road  at Palm Valley. Its one of the heritage trees that is designated as such  in this garden and it will be missed by those who know it, including me.

 

Friends of Sungei Buloh: in the new Rooster Year Lo-hei and Mangrove Tree Planting at the new Junior Wetlands February 12, 2017

Welcoming the new Lunar Year with Friends of Sungei Buloh.

After the traditional Lo-hei, the delicious vegetarian salad  was a great start to good nature practice, followed by  mangrove tree planting just outside the Visitor Centre, in a small plot of converted landscape, to be used as a mini wetlands for  young visitors.

Watched a demo by a Nparks staff, Win, and donning  a pair of oversized Phua Chu Kang Boots (yellow), my digging was started literally with a bang. My specially designed shovel struck  a big rock!  With help from ShuFeng and  another we extracted it and succeeded in planting my first mangrove plant, a Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (Tumu in Malay). Happy  and very satisfied with myself, I started on a second plant.

My choice of the next mangrove plant was a more ambitious one. A much larger one with help from Mr Wong T W , this time an  Ultraman, as Mr Wong called it. Its the Heritiera littoralis, or Dungon.  The seeds, winged ones, have some semblance to the Japanese cartoon sci-fi character by the same name.

Here are the plants I planted.

Its was a great start to a new year with the group’s contribution to our wetlands, in this small but symbolic way of conservation and a common spirit of comaraderie-for-nature.